Naked and Marooned

by Ed Stafford

  I mused that if the animals were big and they lived in the cave I might need a small rock by me to throw at them when they returned.

  ‘Stafford, you always said that whenever you felt unsure you’d sit down and calm yourself down. First day you were bound to be all over the place.’ I went through the positives. ‘You’ve had a drink of coconut water and will be able to eat some coconut flesh tonight, and you’ve found shelter. The only remaining survival priority is fire and that isn’t essential on day one. You’re doing really well.’

  But I couldn’t help but be unsettled by the continued look of panic in my wide, white eyes in the flimsy screen on the video camera. I could see the tension in my temples and my forehead looked like a nail bomb wrapped in crêpe paper. I tried to calm myself with words of reassurance − I had the experience and the capabilities to survive well on this island. I needed to trust in that. Unconvinced, I returned to immediate practicalities. ‘Crikey,’ I sighed, ‘let’s get some more fluids down me before the end of the day.’

  The rough rocks kneaded the soft soles of my bare feet as I climbed down to the beach. I noticed several plate-sized giant clamshells I could use to hold water and mentally recorded them. The surface changed to soft sand, which felt kinder, but I was going to have to try to make some sandals if my feet weren’t to be cut to ribbons.

  In the tree line at the top of the beach was a much shorter coconut tree with some very green fruits on it. I shimmied a couple of feet up the trunk like an overweight chimpanzee on opiates and hand-picked two small coconuts. I smashed them on another sharp rock with all my might (being careful not to trap my fingers underneath) and sank two long, cool, sweet drinks that spilled down my chin and chest. I glugged and glugged and then panted, grinning at the simple pleasure.

  In the Amazon I had struggled to stay positive and resorted to NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) tricks to keep me on track. When I had felt the onset of mental weakness I had deliberately envisaged people in my life who were inspirational so that I didn’t slip into unbecoming behaviour. When confronted with bad situations I had learned to select more appropriate mind states than anger or frustration, neither of which helped at all. But this experience seemed very different from the outset. For a start the Amazon walk hadn’t been done alone, and that seemed key. Isolation is a technique used by people – hermits, monks, yogis – looking for a mystical experience. In my self-created world of avoidance getting in touch with my inner self was the last thing I wanted.

  I had anticipated that this challenge would need more than mind tricks. I knew it would push me to places of painful honesty and I had to confront them rather than artificially control them. My strategy here, to ensure that madness didn’t take over, was one suggested to me by two Aboriginal Australians I’d met through Amanda and become close friends with – Harold and Jeremy.

  Harold is Jeremy’s uncle. They are mixed-race Aboriginal and white Australian and have feet in more than one world in more ways than one. Harold, who is about sixty, is so lacking in ego, so unimposing, in fact, that often his presence goes completely unnoticed. But to miss him would be a mistake as he is one of the most powerful Aboriginal healers who exists today. A man of few words, he has been a strong and calming influence on me ever since I have known him.

  Jeremy is a completely different beast, younger than me, and with the exuberance of a youthful travelled man he boasts the wisdom of somebody far older. A powerful spiritual healer, talented artist and phenomenal musician, he has helped guide me to become a stronger, more conscious person.

  On a recent trip to the Daintree rainforest in Queensland they had warned me not to underestimate my forthcoming sixty days in isolation. That is a very long time to cope with by yourself, they told me − plenty long enough to go mad. ‘That’s a long time, brother. You could get proper fucked up.’

  Aboriginals have traditionally spent extended periods of time alone on walkabout. Their whole existence is a connection to the land and nature. They have a belief that we all have three brains – the biggest and most important is the gut, the instinct; the second is the heart; and the smallest brain is the logical mind that most westerners use solely to run their lives. Incredibly the same phrase, ‘ngan duppurru’, Yalanji Aboriginal language for the mind, also means ‘tangled’ − or more crudely, ‘fucked’. They would use the same word to describe a fishing net that had become knotted up beyond repair.

  Seeing my not so uncommon tendency to worry and analyse they explained to me that if I stayed in my logical mind for my time on the island it would be a long, hard fight to stay sane. I would face an onslaught of apprehensions, fears and uncontrollable thoughts that would test my strongest resolve.

  Instead, they advised, I needed to come from a deeper place – a place of soul, a place of surrender to what is and where I wouldn’t, couldn’t, overcomplicate things.

  To do this they gave me the simplest of tools. They told me to make a simple circle of stones big enough to sit in. Whenever I felt myself at risk of overactive dark thoughts, panic or undue worry I was to stop whatever I was doing and go and sit in this circle. There I would be safe, they told me, protected from the island and from any external factors. I sincerely hoped it would work.

  My thirst quenched by coconut water I decided it was time to make my stone circle. I selected eight rocks the size of grapefruits from the upper beach and, cradling them in my arms, I wobbled up the rock face into the cave. Ever the army captain, I mocked myself for wasting my time on such mumbo-jumbo. Nonetheless I laid out the twelve and six o’clock stones – then nine and three. I used the last four rocks to fill the gaps to make a symmetrical circle just over a metre in diameter in the pungent dust of the cave floor.

  As with a new car, I wanted to try it out – to sit in it and take it for a spin. I lowered my buttocks into the circle and sat up with my arms resting on my knees and let out a long transformative sigh. I smiled and, to my genuine surprise, felt immediately relaxed inside the circle. I looked up in order to appreciate the magnificent view from the cave for the first time: the vast expanse of bright blue ocean, the waves crashing on the reef in the middle distance and the soft clouds cushioning the sun above the horizon. I didn’t have to try. I was composed immediately. The transformation was extraordinary in its power and its speed. I felt safe, calm and peaceful. I could think calmly if I wanted – but, more importantly, I could feel. I could appreciate beauty and I could feel humour again. I chuckled at just what an amazing tool this stone circle was. The need to analyse why just wasn’t there. I felt good again – for the first time that day – and that was all that mattered.

  With the sun a fist and a half from the horizon I decided that I had achieved enough for day one and turned my attention to sleeping. With a dried branch I swept out the cave floor and cleared my bed space of animal faeces. I did feel ridiculous housekeeping naked but at least no one could see me doing it.

  I knew I would surely be cold with no bedding on the cave floor and looked around me to see what was available. It had not rained for some time and all over the cliff face were clumps of dry, coarse grass. My plan for warmth was hatched immediately; in the daylight that was left I would gather as much grass as I could and sleep like a horse in a hay-filled stable. The grass had shallow roots in the rock face and came away easily in my hands in big clumps. The warm light of the evening sun watched over my last activity on that first day until I was content that I had enough grass to cover me and keep me snug.

  As the sun brushed the horizon I sat in the dusty poo, spooned out some gelatinous immature coconut flesh with my fingernails and ate like an ape. I allowed myself to think of home for the first time. Of those I had left behind: Amanda, my beautiful new fiancée, and her two kids whom I had so quickly found myself loving so much. Immediately I became homesick and again asked myself what had possessed me to commit to such an absurd challenge. Why was I doing this? Why wasn’t I at home reading Roal
d Dahl stories to the kids or sharing a bottle of wine with Amanda? What was I trying to prove and to whom?

  As the light faded I realised that I had to stay in one place. I had no torch and no fire and would be restricted to the cave until dawn. The cool wind stirred and circled around the open cave. I turned the camera on, flicked it into infra-red and immediately realised that I had in fact got a sort of a torch. At first I questioned the morality of using the ‘torch’ when I wasn’t actually filming but quickly ditched any such concerns; why make my situation harder than it already was by imposing silly rules?

  Feeling very much like an animal cowering from danger, I lay down in the dirt and tried to pull the grass over me so as to stop the sharp draught chilling my exposed skin.

  After five minutes of adjustments I lay perfectly still looking up at the blackness. I ran through my checklist: I was dry, warm(ish), hydrated and protected from the elements if the weather turned bad. I hadn’t eaten much but I wasn’t hungry. Food seemed less essential for the moment and I was filled with a feeling of ‘so far so good’. I felt too overwhelmed to be happy. There was simply too much to think about – all my plans for tomorrow. I wasn’t sad, though. Today had been kind to me and I was in a better position on the first night than I had previously thought possible. I was functioning – that was all that mattered.

  The idea of falling asleep immediately was always going to be an optimistic one. Don’t look for hay bedding in Marks & Spencer’s; you won’t find it, and for good reason. It’s incredibly itchy. But it’s a trade-off: itch or freeze. The floor was gritty, hard and inconveniently sloped. I’d just got as comfortable as I could when I sensed a large spider crawling over my chest. I kept a stick beside me to beat away intruders. Paranoid, but comforting.

  It was a time to sleep and build up my energies but, in my physical stillness, questions and worries came flooding into my brain.

  I went over all the things that I knew I had to do the next day but, as the blackness thickened, my thoughts became more complex and fear-laden and I resigned myself to the fact that this was going to be a long dark night. Could I survive on my own? Where was my composure? Where would I build my camp? What was the rest of the island like? Had I only got through the Amazon because of the assistance that I’d had? Was I mentally strong enough to deal with the intensity of my situation? Had I finally committed to something that I was not able to deal with? Why were there so many questions? This may seem a little bit of an overreaction − I’d only been there a few hours after all − but sixty days! Two months! If I’m honest I have to admit I wanted to go home right there and then.

  With my back bare to the gritty floor of the cave I tried in vain to switch off and fall asleep. I snuggled deeper into the corner of the cave and rearranged my hay bedding over me as the anxieties ran round my head.

  • • •

  I must eventually have fallen asleep because I awoke in the night shivering violently. My bedding had gone and I was completely exposed to the night and to the gusts of cold wind that eddied around the back of the cave. With no idea of the time, I felt around for the grass and rearranged my bedding, then tried to go back to sleep. As I lay awake, staring into the black night, the wind grew stronger. My grass became less effective as the ferocity of the gusts increased and my sense of being in control in the safety of the cave disintegrated and blew away with the dust.

  In a snap I decided I needed to be out of the wind and so I felt my way down to the beach and tried to bury myself in the sand. I had remembered an Aboriginal story about some of them being caught out late and burying themselves in the surface layer of the sand to cut out the chill of the wind. My sand was damp, however, and as I dug myself a trench with my hands I became anxious that this was the wrong choice. I lay in my self-dug grave and heaped the damp sand over me from my toes upwards until I was covered up to my nipples. The wind was not detectable on my lower body but I was cold and I could feel heat being conducted away from me by the wet sand.

  I deliberated, worried, gave myself time limits and subsequently talked myself out of them. After at least an hour I admitted defeat and broke the wet sand cast. I felt tired, inexperienced and unsure of everything. Gibbering with cold, my jaw shaking uncontrollably, I climbed back into the cave where I questioned not only my situation but also myself. Doubts crept into my head and gnawed at my confidence and sense of worth. I worried and turned and shivered all night. There was no way out – no fire, no blanket, no warm clothes to pull on. I felt exposed and utterly helpless.

  Reflecting on that first night I was no more comfortable or composed than a lost animal. All I could do was lie in the dust and wait for morning. It was so much more than unsettling − I felt like I was unravelling − hopelessly out of control and seemingly without the ability to compose myself. But I was dry and alive. That would have to do for now.

  Chapter 2

  WATER

  Through my closed eyelids I started to become aware that the darkness was diminishing and the sky was filling with light. I could hear the waves crashing on to the beach below me. I could also make out another set of waves crashing on the reef about 400 metres offshore. The background static was irregular and unrelenting.

  I allowed my eyelids to raise – the only curtains to my open-air world. No other part of me moved as I slowly absorbed the scene before me.

  What a view.

  My rocky doorstep touched down into a front lawn of soft sand speckled with small crab hills and their corresponding wispy trails. Cushioned between the gently lapping white water on the beach and the coarser defences of the outer reef was a breathtaking lagoon. Protected by the reef’s fortifications, the surface ripples shimmered peacefully. Beyond the reef, the darker waters didn’t look so inviting.

  For the first time, the thought of a storm struck me. That’d be fun. A calm night had been difficult enough. If there was a proper tropical storm, there’d be no prospect of help from anywhere. ‘Let’s not think about the things that might happen, let’s concentrate on the here and now,’ I told myself.

  I propped myself up on my arms. Two starlings chatted politely as they darted in and out of a tiny nest above my head.

  ‘And it begins,’ I thought to myself as I registered that I had made it through the first night. Only fifty-nine to go.

  Brushing the coating of fine dust and straw off my goose-bumped chest, stomach and legs I stood up and stretched. I reached for the camera, flipped out the screen and flicked the power on. I was still shivering as I began my daily monologue.

  ‘Just put some clothes on!’ was my first instinct of the day. ‘But I haven’t got any.’ Despite the fact that there was no one there I felt naked and exposed. I felt distinctly uncomfortable and needed to do something about it. I picked up a rock that was whiter than the walls of the cave and etched two vertical lines to indicate that this was day two. My half-eaten coconut was covered in tiny black ants.

  I powered on the Spot tracking device and pressed the ‘All OK’ button. The communication seemed inadequate. I wanted to write a long letter about how I’d fared on night one. I wanted to sit down and have a good natter with the production crew about how surprised I’d been by my own periods of near-panic, at how apprehensive I felt, about how real and unpleasant this all seemed. But I was on my own. That desire to be understood or to be listened to would remain unfulfilled for the next two months.

  OK, introspection time over, Ed – get started. Have a drink. I gingerly climbed down out of my cave, ever conscious that if I cut my feet I had no antiseptic or plasters. I made my way to the coconut tree that I’d depleted the day before and easily dislodged another green fruit from the tree. After the routine twenty seconds of primal smashing like a gorilla I held the husk to my lips and drank the sweet fluid.

  As I came up for air I looked around me and noticed that the rocks were covered in small black sea snails. ‘I can eat those,’ I thought. As
long as they didn’t make me sick I’d found myself a good protein-filled meal for breakfast. Excellent.

  I picked a handful of snails from a rock the size of a cow that was half buried in the sand. I then took a smaller rock – the size of a tennis ball – and brought it down with a crack on the first snail shell. The rock disintegrated on contact but the snail was completely unscathed. ‘That’s not a great sign,’ I thought to myself as I examined the ruins from my attack. I was very aware that I had no knife and that I would have to make myself some sort of basic cutting tool in order to be able to carry out the simplest of tasks. The fragility of the first rock worried me and I searched for a more solid alternative.

  As I weighed up my options I began to realise that there were two main types of rock – a porous and brittle one that looked like dead coral, and a denser volcanic rock of which the island appeared to be composed. I found myself a similar sized piece of the latter and tried once to separate my first snail from its home. The shell shattered. I picked the body clean of the eggshell-like fragments, popped it into my mouth and swallowed. Not so bad, I thought – so I tried a second.

  At that stage common sense coughed politely to attract my attention and put forward the proposition that it might be wise to wait a little while to see if I had any reaction to these first two snails before eating a whole housing estate of them. I grudgingly conformed to good sense.

  Head up and looking about the beach, I decided to explore again. Where I was, the island rose directly out of the back of the beach behind me in the form of huge vertical cliffs that were shielding me from the hidden morning sun. I ventured round the island with the ocean on my left and the steep cliffs on my right. Reassuringly, there were lots of snails. Even if I didn’t find anything else to eat I suspected that I could live for sixty days on coconut and snails alone, so this was comforting. It offered a more balanced diet than many students manage.